Ground Support Equipment in Aviation Museums

[Noha307]

Back in August, Keegan Chetwynd of the Military Aviation Museum wrote an excellent blog post about how the museum acquired a pair of Ford BNO-40 "Moto Tugs". However, the museum is also to acquire more and have posted a list of tugs for which they are looking. They include:

• Cletrac M2 High-Speed Tractor
• Minneapolis Moline NTX
• Clark Tractor Clarkat
• Clark Tractor Clarktor 6
• Case VAIW-3 or VAIW-4
• International Harvester Aircraft Tug
• David Brown VIG1/100 Tug

Coincidentally, a collection of three Clarkat tugs is currently listed for sale on Barnstormers/

The Yanks Air Museum has a United Tractor SML series tug:
[Link to Image]
(Source: Reddit)

The South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum was mentioned in a previous post, but their yellow Douglas tug was not:
[Link to Image]
[Link to Image]
(Source: Facebook)

SYAM also supported the Vulcan to the Sky Trust with the restoration of a bomb loading power pack:
[Link to Image]
[Link to Image]
(Source: Facebook)

Finally, the tug indoors at the Swiss Museum of Transport was mentioned in a previous post, but the museum also has a number of pieces of ground support equipment, such as a red Panther crash truck used by Pilatus, on display outside underneath their Convair 990:
[Link to Image]
(Source: Ever True Life)

It also includes Goldhofer AST-1 tug marked as "TD-01" and named "Alois":
[Link to Image]
(Source: Flickr)

EDIT (24-11-29): Somehow I missed that MAM made another post on November 7th where they announced they had acquired two Clarktor 6s from the Delaware Aviation Museum Foundation and eight (!) M2 high-speed tractors (aka Cletracs) from the Commemorative Air Force.

Last edited by Noha307 on Fri Nov 29, 2024 7:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Noha307]

The National Museum of World War II Aviation was mentioned in a previous post, but their tugs - a Northwestern JG-40FK-2, s/n 2261 - either wasn't or was misidentified as a similar type:
[Link to Image]
(Source: Google Maps)
[Link to Image]
(Source: Google Maps)

[Noha307]

The United States Army Aviation Museum has a yellow NMC-Wollard tug:
[Link to Image]
(Source: Facebook)

[Noha307]

The Air Force Museum of New Zealand was mentioned in a previous post, but their most unique piece of ground support equipment was not. The museum has a GMC truck, motor transport number MT1397, that was used as an engine test bed:
[Link to Image]
(Source: Facebook)